One Nil
by nathalie m
Summary: Now the night has come to drown us. Femslash.


Title: One Nil  
  
Author: nathalie m  
  
Summary: "Now the night has come to drown us."  
  
Pairing: Sam/Janet  
  
Rating: PG-13 for adult themes.  
  
Disclaimer: The characters don't belong to me.   
  
Author's Note: This is AU, and also my first SG-1 fic. I'm just playing around, trying to get a handle on the characters' voices. :)  
  
"I miss you," she says, and a phone line stretched across a thousand miles crackles with static.  
  
You are reminded that minutes cost money, so you keep every single response that forms in your head--mostly variations on "So, are you far enough away from me yet?"--to yourself. Instead you say, "I miss you too." But you can't resist: "So does Cassie."  
  
You were trying to twist the knife, but instead of a scream, you just get a sigh. "I know. I wish it didn't have to be this way."  
  
You could be bitter now, or nonchalant; you could play it straight and ask questions like you don't know the answers. How do you like it there? Did you think leaving would kill the pain better than I could? Is it working?  
  
She listens to you breathing, thinking, and doesn't prod for a response. She waits. She hears you. You have taught her this. She was always too eager to know, to demand, to guess, to assume, to analyze. Now you let her draw conclusions, and she lets you listen to what she doesn't say.  
  
"How do you like it there?"  
  
"It seems nice." But I wish I was there, she does not add. "So far, anyway."  
  
"That's good." I don't believe you. Come home, you do not say.  
  
"Yeah." I'm staying here, because your face finally faded from my memory when I hit the city limits sign. "I don't know why I called," she admits. "Kind of pathetic to be homesick already."  
  
And you want to apologize, like you did so many times the night before she left, but you stay quiet. "No, it's not pathetic. I'm glad you called." It's frightening how easy this is.  
  
She surprises you. "I'm sorry."  
  
You feel like playing dumb, or being a disciplinarian: for what? you'd ask, and she'd break down. You'd tell her everything would be okay if she'd just come back.   
  
"About what happened that night," she supplies, as if your silence must be due to a memory lapse.  
  
"I remember," is all you say.  
  
"It's later here," she finally offers. "I should go."  
  
"Yeah."  
  
She gives you her new number, and you write it down.   
  
After you hang up the receiver, you walk into the kitchen and burn the slip of scrap paper over the kitchen sink, then wash the ashes down the drain.   
  
- - - - -  
  
That night she'd showed up on your doorstep, you hadn't said a lot of things. Right now you wish you'd told her the truth: that you wished it had been you instead of him, that you wished he was the one who failed to save your life.  
  
But something held you back. Her eyes were wide, red and dry. Like she'd cried out all the salt she'd ever had; and what was it you felt? Sympathy, empathy, guilt?  
  
No.  
  
You felt victorious. Because you were alive, and he was dead, and finally she would have to face that the opportunity she'd never taken advantage of wasn't available anymore. Finally she would have to face that the mistake she kept making was all she really had, and all because of him and the rules they could not, would not break.  
  
But you were an easier sell; difficult to explain if revealed, just dangerous enough, yet not so serious as to keep her from backing out when she felt the water filling her lungs. She could never have abandoned him the way she abandoned you so many times, and you were always expected to accept this situation because, after all, the two of you were never really serious. Who was to blame--her, for expecting it, or you, for playing along?  
  
And remorse kicked in the very second after the thought first crossed your mind, and right away you felt all the right things--sympathy, empathy, guilt--but by then it was too late. The look on her face told you her suspicions had already been confirmed.  
  
When you--  
  
"Is everything okay?" Cassandra's in the doorway, rubbing her eyes. You have to squint to see her face in the dark. She looks worried. "I heard the phone ring." A pause. "I thought you might want to talk about..." She trails off, presses her lips together, then tries again. "About Jack."   
  
You sigh.  
  
"Is that why you can't sleep?"  
  
"I keep seeing his face," you admit. And hers, when she realized you couldn't save him this time.   
  
"Oh," she says, and comes over to give you a hug.  
  
As she's leaving, she turns around and to say, "You know, he wouldn't want this."  
  
No.   
  
He wouldn't want this.  
  
(Do you?)  
  
--when you let her in that night, she'd been furious. Drawing blood with her mouth, leaving bruises with her fingertips, she hadn't relented even when you whispered "I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry," as you came.  
  
She had remained silent.  
  
You were sorry then, and you are now; for failing, for not trying harder, for living instead of dying. But she didn't believe you. Maybe she still doesn't.  
  
- - - - -  
  
She calls one more time, on Cassie's birthday. You hand the receiver to Cassandra and leave the room. At the other end of the house, you can hear peals of laughter and high-speed chatter. Your bones begin to ache.  
  
Finally, you wander back into the kitchen. She glances over at you and nods, as if you've told her to say goodbye. You want to tell her it's okay, to keep the line open as long as she can, but you don't.   
  
"Bye," she says into the phone, and hands it to you.  
  
"Hi," you say, as Cassie leaves the room.  
  
"Hi," she says.  
  
And then, nothing.  
  
Again, there are questions to ask, but there's only one thing you want to say before she hangs up. You bite it back once, and then once more.  
  
"I, uh, I have to go," she finally says, and it's only then you're aware there are voices in the background. Someone calling her name.  
  
You hang up without telling her the truth you've finally realized: you wish it had been you.  
  
It doesn't matter.  
  
You never hear from her again. 


End file.
